It was a return to winning ways for Tottenham Hotspur after a miserable three games for the Lilywhites, with Harry Kane back in the lineup and Heung-Min Son back amongst the goals.

The team news was met with shock from Spurs fans and rival fans alike: both Lucas Moura and Erik Lamela were playing, but the attention-grabbing inclusion was Harry Kane, injured a few weeks previously against Liverpool, but back in the side sooner than expected. Mourinho made four changes, while Sam Allardyce made five after his own disappointing defeat midweek.

The game got underway in snowy North London, with Spurs the side looking to make the early punches. Harry Kane’s passing clearly made a difference right from the start, and Lucas looked lively, making an early run through the West Brom defence, before Bartley made the most of a heavy touch round Ajayi.

The first few big chances of the game fell to Harry Kane. The first was a product of some excellent work down the right flank by Erik Lamela, playing the ball through to a surging Serge Aurier (pun intended) despite being on his way to the ground. Aurier played a beautiful square ball across to Harry Kane who, on his left foot, blazed agonisingly wide. The next one was a far bigger chance. Kane was somehow first to a wayward through ball from Tanguy Ndombele, after taking a deflection of a defender, and found himself in acres of space in front of the net. A fully fit Harry Kane is smashing it past the keeper, but his shot could only bobble past the post. Perhaps he was distracted by the tribute to Ronald McDonald that West Brom were wearing.

His ankle seemed to give him issues again minutes later. Not feeling that he could hit it first time, Kane shifted it to his right foot inside the box, before having his rather weak shot blocked by a defender. Another effort was palmed away by Johnstone soon after.

A big chance came from a corner, but neither Aurier’s header or Toby Alderweireld’s strike could beat a desperate defence as Lee Peltier and Robert Snodgrass threw everything at it.

After 45 minutes, West Brom created a big chance. Snodgrass sent a cross over to the back post, where Diagne had drifted away from Davinson Sánchez. His header was a solid one, but Hugo Lloris got behind it at the crucial moment. West Brom were adamant that it had crossed the line, but there was no buzz of the watch. It would have been the ultimate smash-and-grab half from West Brom, but the sides went in at half-time still level.

Heung-Min Son had the first chance of the second half, but his low effort was kicked away by Johnstone. Lamela followed it up with a slalom in the snow that most Olympic skiiers would have been proud of, but he couldn’t find the finish, a right-footed shot (or cross?) going off for a goal kick.

6 minutes later, BOOM! Harry Kane latched onto an incredible through ball from Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and slid it past the keeper. He still couldn’t quite hit it with the venom that we’ve come to expect of Tottenham, England and perhaps the world’s best striker, but it was placed with accuracy that more than made up for that.

His class was shown again with a sumptuous touch with his chest, sending Lucas through on the counter. The Brazilian obliged, surging right through the defence and sliding the ball into Heung-Min Son. He’d missed one opportunity today, and that was certainly not happening again. 2-0. Spurs were firmly in the driving seat.

Snodgrass sent a cross over to the back post, where Diagne had drifted away from Davinson Sánchez. His header was a solid one, and this time it was sent past Hugo Lloris, but it was deemed offside. A wake-up call.

At 64 minutes, Erik Lamela did what Erik Lamela does best (no, not making the most of minimal contact from Anthony Martial) and got booked for a lunge on Sam Gallagher.

Lively throughout, Lamela had a pretty good game. Sharp on the ball, dedicated in the challenge before he was replaced by Steven Bergwijn with 20 minutes left to go.

On 82 minutes, Pereira sent a cross over to the back post, where Diagne had drifted away from Davinson Sánchez. His finish was a solid one, but again, his goal was disallowed for offside. To his credit, it looked like very good defending from the Colombian, making sure the offside call would be given through clever use of his body.

16-year-old Dane Scarlett came on for a minute-long cameo, and became the only ever 16-year-old to take part in a Premier League game for Tottenham Hotspur. And that was about it. An uneventful final ten minutes culminated in three points for Tottenham Hotspur, and a thoroughly deserved win.

Attention now goes to an FA Cup clash against Carlo Ancelotti’s Everton, who we face for the first time since our inability to head the ball in defence cost us points in our first game of the season. Spurs are still in all the cup competitions this season, and it would be lovely if we could keep it that way. Come on you Spurs.

It may have felt like a lifetime ago, but Spurs returned to action eight days after defeating Sheffield United to face Wycombe Wanderers in the fourth round of the FA Cup.

The competition’s draw has been quite generous to Jose Mourinho’s team so far, putting them in a David vs Goliath match up with eight-tier Marine and then bottom of the Championship Wycombe. 

Tottenham had made ten changes from the side that won 3-1 at Bramall Lane, with stand-in captain Ben Davies being the only player to remain. Gareth Bale was given the opportunity to start his first game in a month, having recovered from a calf injury sustained against Stoke in the Carabao Cup quarter final.

Gareth Bale should have given Spurs the lead in the opening five minutes, as the Welshman connected with Lucas Moura’s corner but his header was wide of the Wycombe post.

Only a couple minutes later and accomplished backup goalkeeper Joe Hart was all that stood in the way of the hosts taking the lead. A flicked header from Leicester City loanee, Admiral Muskwe looked destined for the top corner but the former England number one was able to claw the shot away for a corner.

Not long after regaining control of the fixture, another opportunity arose for Bale as the ball fell to him on the edge of the eighteen yard box but he failed to convert once again.

Despite having come close to conceding on multiple occasions, the Chairboys were able to take the lead in the 25th minute after Davinson Sanchez’ attempted block landed perfectly for an incoming Fred Onyedinma to slot into the bottom left corner.

Shortly after going ahead, Gareth Ainsworth was forced into making a change due to injury. Joe Jacobson had tried to battle through the pain but was clearly not in any condition to continue and was subsequently substituted for Darius Charles.

It seemed as if it just wasn’t going to be Tottenham’s night in the closing stages of the first half, with efforts from Moussa Sissoko and Japhet Tanganga smacking the crossbar.

After trying to find a breakthrough all half, Spurs fans were able to take a sigh of relief. Gareth Bale finally took advantage of the lack of concentration from Wycombe’s defenders by getting on the end of a Lucas Moura cross before guiding the ball into the back of the net.

Jose Mourinho had decided to go with a new approach for the second half, as Japhet Tanganga made way for Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg. A move that would see Moussa Sissoko play the right-back position instead of his usual role in the heart of the midfield.

Not much had changed for the two sides after the restart, Spurs were unable to make their numerous chances count while Wycombe sat back and hoped to take advantage of the few chances that they had.

The sixty minute mark seemed to be when Mourinho had seen enough as superstars Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and Tanguy Ndombele entered the frame over the course of the next fifteen minutes in place of Carlos Vinicius, Lucas Moura and Erik Lamela.

Gareth Ainsworth tried to counter the opposing substitutions by making a few of his own over the same time span. Matt Bloomfield, Admiral Muskwe and Uche Ikpeazu had their time cut short and were replaced by Garath McClary, Scott Kashket and fan-favourite Adebayo Akinfenwa.

Harry Kane and Son Heung-min continued the Lilywhites’ streak of not finding the back of the net but a new sense of danger could be felt upon their arrival.

Harry Winks would break the hearts of many Wycombe fans in the 86th minute, as he broke the deadlock with a curling effort from twenty yards out. A goalmouth scramble had led to a poor clearance from the defender which eventually fell to the England international.

It seemed as if Spurs just needed that late goal to spring into action, as Tanguy Ndombele would increase the lead just a minute later with a calm one touch finish into the bottom eight corner.

With just a minute remaining in added time you would expect Spurs to just maintain possession and see the match through, but Ndombele had other ideas. The Frenchman would remind everyone that he is one of the most technically gifted footballers in the world by dancing his way into space, before using an outrageous piece of skill to split the two defenders and strike the ball between them for his second goal of the game.

Ndombele’s game consisted of two shots on target, two goals, sixteen touches, three duels won, two key passes, one big chance created and a 75% pass completion in only twenty-two minutes of action.

Jose Mourinho admitted that he feared his side would be taken to extra time by the Championship outfit.

What can we do? We want to progress in the competition. We don’t want to throw it away. We don’t want to lose. We needed a good strong team and a good strong bench.

“It would be more of a problem with 30 minutes extra time because Kane’s 30 minutes becomes 60 and so on, but hopefully nothing. I didn’t see huge fatigue. Ben Davies, I hope just a bad feeling and not anything on his calf.

“But I knew that the game was going to be difficult. We prepared the game knowing it could be hard and it was. It’s not easy to handle their style of play.

“I showed the players clips of when we played them four years ago and it was a difficult game then and it was again.”

Everton will be Tottenham’s opponents in the fifth round of the FA Cup, having beaten Sheffield Wednesday on Sunday.

Spurs will now be looking to avenge their last minute defeat at the hands of Liverpool on Thursday. With only a point separating the two teams a win for the North London side would take them five points behind leaders Manchester City.

By Reece Coughlan

It seems as though Tottenham have played the same game multiple times this season, as the failure to extend their lead proves to be the downfall of the squad and in the closing of the 90 minutes that failure is punished. In this meeting, Kane’s first-half header was cancelled out by Ivan Cavaleiro’s in the second half, resulting in another disappointing draw which really should’ve been a win.

Spurs and Fulham have now had their first draw since December 2009, and between then and now Tottenham had won 10 out of 11 games against their London rivals. This is now Tottenham’s longest unbeaten run of London derbies (8) (W3 D5).

25 minutes into the game, a fantastic long-ball from Hojbjerg found Reguilon on the left flank who supplied an inch-perfect cross to Kane who headed home to open the scoring, the Englishman’s 11th league goal of the season. Shortly after, he missed an arguably easier chance from just 8 yards out from a Serge Aurier cross.

His attacking partner Heung-Min Son had more of a quiet game, kept out at close-range by Alphonse Areola on the stroke of half-time as well as hitting the post with 20 minutes left, and just a couple minutes later the equaliser came.

Only Brighton (12) and Sheffield United (11) have dropped more points than Tottenham this season when in a winning position and Mourinho had his fair say after the match, saying proclaiming that the performance was “Not good enough, but good enough to win… Not good enough because we have to play better in a more consistent way”

“In the first half, we had chances to kill the game, but when you don’t do it, you cannot concede goals the way we did “This is the same story basically since the beginning of the season”.

Next for Jose’s side is Sheffield United at Bramall Lane and Chris Wilder’s side have just picked up their first league win of the season at home to Newcastle. It’s a given that the game is a must-win and after missing out on third-place after their 17th game of the season, Mourinho will leave no room for excuses on the weekend.

Player ratings: Lloris (6), Reguilon (7), Sanchez (5), Dier (6), Aurier (7), Sissoko (6), Winks (6), Hojbjerg (6), Ndombele (7), Son (5), Kane (7)

After a successful win midweek to progress to the League Cup final, we started our FA Cup campaign playing Marine of the Northern Premier Divison in a real ‘David v Goliath’ clash.

This was the biggest gap in an FA Cup tie in the history of the competition with 161 places between the sides.

Marine are one of the only clubs not named after the town but are named after the local pub.

They play their games in Crosby, 15 minutes away from Anfield and while as a result of the National lockdown restrictions they were not allowed to have fans at the game, they managed to sell 30, 697 virtual tickets.

Tottenham named a weakened team that still featured some players with international caps such as Dele and Alderweireld, along with a first team debut for academy player Harvey White, a rare start for Gedson Fernandes and a spot on the bench for academy starlet Alfie Devine.

Marine’s starting lineup featured a goalkeeper who works at Sainsbury’s , a binman playing in midfield and an PE teacher up front.

In the first 15 minutes, we controlled the game and had chances but were not clinical enough with shots from dele and Lucas not troubling the keeper.

Marine had a shot from long range which troubled hart which was a wake up call for the team. But minutes later, a well worked goal finished off by Vinicius put us 1-0 up.

We continued to dominate with a Gedson shot sailing over the bar, but a dele pass to Doherty resulted in a great save by the keeper who could only parry it out to the path of Vinicius who got his a 2nd to make it 2-0.

Lucas won a free kick just outside the box and scored from it directed it like a rocket. A counter from nothing by marine nearly resulted in a goal with a key block from Rodon preventing a goal bound shot from going in. An acute finish from Vinicius sealed his hatrick just before halftime.

1st Half Stats

Possession – 27-73%

Shots- 2-10

Completed passes- 60-262

Big chances- 0-3

Jose handed Alfie Devine his first senior appearance and the half started with a few Marine chances.

A Carlos Vinicius chance for a 4th went over a davies cross led to a Lucas shot which went wide. A great moment for Alfie Devine with a goal on his first appearance in senior football from a Lucas pass with a well taken acute finish.

We maintained our control of the games with a lot of free kicks being won but none managing to trouble the keeper with a Harvey White attempt sailing over and a Gareth Bale free kick not troubling the keeper.

In the last knockings of the game we just kept possession and hardly threatened the home side with the only real chance being a Vinicius shot going over the bar in added time

2nd Half Stats

Possession- 23-77%

Shots- 3-9

Completed passes- 68-347

Big chances- 0-1

Player Ratings

Hart- 5 Didn’t have a lot to deal with apart from a long range effort in the first half he was nearly beat by.

Doherty- 4 Got forward well and was unlucky not to score from a dele ball which fell to Vinicius for his 2nd but looked vulnerable defensively .

Alderweireld- 6 Solid, defended well, nullified their threats looked very comfortable out there a good half by the Belgian.

Rodon- 7 Solid as a rock limited their physical striker and any other threats they had with a key block to prevent a goal bound shot going in.

Davies- 6 Got forward well and defended well put some decent crosses in as well a good showing.

Sissoko- 7 Controlled the midfield, was a threat progressing the ball in transition into the attacking third.

White- 6 A good showing on his first start was very tidy on the ball and won a lot of free kicks had a few chances from free kicks that hit the wall or went off target.

Gedson- 4 Had some good moments but was very wasteful with the ball in key situations, needs a better showing next time out to prove he deserves minutes in other competitions. 

Dele- 8 Played a key role in a lot of the goals and really took the game by the scruff of the neck with an assist a good showing.

Lucas- 7 Was always a threat going forward, won lots of fouls and scored a wonder free kick had chances to score more than 1 goal also contributed with an assist

Vinicius- 10 Hatrick hero 3rd goal was very well taken which will do him the world of confidence regardless of the opposition.

Subs

Devine- 7 A good first team debut for the 16 year old looked to make something happen with the ball driving forward well with a well taken goal to show for his efforts.

Tanganga- 6 Very solid defended well when he had to and nullified their threats.

Bale- 5 Didn’t have the huge impact as expected had a free kick that forced the keeper into a save and a shot that went wide but not much else apart from that.

Clarke- 5 Looked bright when he came on had a shot and linked up play well not much else.

Reguilon – 5 Not on the pitch long enough to have a real impact but got forward well and was good defensively.

Spurs are on their way to Wembley, Tottenham’s gonna do it again! It’s lucky for Spurs when the year ends in one, as they booked their place in the first Wembley final since 2015 with a comfortable victory against Championship high-flyers Brentford on Tuesday.

No manager has played in more domestic finals in England than Jose Mourinho since his debut season in the country, and his team selection proved how seriously he wants to win a trophy. As a result, Spurs very much started on the front foot, getting forward early, with Sergio Reguilón forcing an early corner.

After ten minutes, as Brentford had been starting to show their talent, Reguilón whipped a gorgeous left-footed cross into the box towards Moussa Sissoko, who must’ve thought he’d recieved an early Christmas present with the amount of space he had to himself inside the Brentford box.

He made no mistake, impeccably guiding the ball past David Raya to score his first goal since December 2019 (his last goal, coming against Burnley, was overshadowed by a certain Korean winger’s individual slaloming piece of excellence).

To the delight of many, Spurs did not sit back on their 1-0 lead, instead pushed for a second. Often through Reguilón on the left, or through Tanguy Ndombele down the middle. However, they failed to create too much of note in the first half, bar a Lucas Moura header from a corner, which was well saved by Raya.

Brentford had some chances of their own, Bryan Mbuemo causing havoc down the right wing, but Eric Dier and Davinson Sánchez held firm.

Brentford’s best chance of the game came a few minutes into the second half. Mbuemo rounded Sánchez on the right and fizzed the ball back to Ivan Toney, usually excellent in front of goal.

Yet, he found his effort heroically blocked by Serge Aurier, who very much made the most of his opportunity to show his worth after the Leicester rugby tackle. Almost instantly after, he missed a wonderful chance at the other end, sending his shot over the bar after some good work by Lucas.

Kane took a free kick after 52 minutes. It went in the general direction of the goal, and that’s all we’ll say on that.

After some minor chances at either end, Tottenham’s set-piece woes continued, with Ivan Toney heading home into an empty net after Hugo Lloris was unable to fully clear a header from Pinnock.

His celebrations were muted, perhaps in the fear of what could come. And indeed, the dreaded VAR check ensued, and ruled his knee to have been offside- by no more than millimetres. It was incredibly close- but rules are rules. No goal!

Spurs looked to push on and make the most of their stroke of luck, and it was only a matter of minutes before the inevitable happened. Tanguy Ndombele played a wonderfully weighted pass in behind the defence, and Heung-Min Son, after already running what seemed like the length of the pitch, latched on to it and fired home to stretch the lead and put the game seemingly beyond doubt.

In quick succession, Harry Kane and Tanguy Ndombele came close to extending the lead even further, but were denied by Raya and the post respectively, before Pierre-Emile Højbjerg was horribly sent to the ground by a challenge from former Arsenal graduate Josh Dasilva, leaving a huge gash down his leg.

Intentional? Probably not. But excruciating to watch? Absolutely. Referee Mike Dean sent him for an early bath after consulting with VAR. With ten men remaining on the field, it was over for Brentford. After a heated exchange of words, Højbjerg was (against his wishes) brought off the pitch to be replaced by Japhet Tanganga, as Mourinho couldn’t take any risks. It was another fantastic performance from the Dane, who won 13 duels, and had a passing accuracy of 88%.

Chas and Dave could be heard over the Tottenham Hotspur Speakers at full time, as Wembley beckons. Moussa Sissoko didn’t know it, but ‘Ossie’s Dream’ would have brought memories back to some of the older Tottenham faithful, released in 1981. The side would go on to beat Manchester City 3-2 in an FA Cup final replay to take home the famous old trophy. As Chas and Dave (and the Tottenham side of 1991) also told us, “it’s lucky for Spurs when year ends in one, we first won the cup when the century begun”. And indeed, a third of our major trophies have been won in years ending in 1. Coincidence? Or will we get our 25th major trophy in April? Will we end 13 years of hurt?

The cup action doesn’t stop there. Spurs travel north to the home of eighth-tier Marine FC, at 5pm on Sunday 10th January, to contest what will be Tottenham’s first FA Cup match against non-league opposition since 1995, in which they played out a 3-0 win over Altrincham.

Written by Ollie Mitchell

Edited by Joey Pickthall